


I'll Take My Chances with Lingering On"

by karrenia_rune



Category: DR. SEUSS - Works, I had Trouble Getting Solla Sollew
Genre: Travelogue
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-04-18
Updated: 2019-04-18
Packaged: 2020-01-16 02:41:46
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,430
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/18512245
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/karrenia_rune/pseuds/karrenia_rune
Summary: Being on account of my travels to Solla Sollew and what I found there.





	I'll Take My Chances with Lingering On"

Disclaimer: I had trouble getting to Solla-Sew and its characters and universe is the creation of Dr.Seuss. it is not mine and is only being used for the purposes of the story.

"I'll take my Chances with Lingering On"

Even after all this time I cannot keep from remembering that time in my youth when I felt I had to discover for myself whether or the legend of the mysterious city of Solla Sew was real or not. I felt it as if were an unquenchable yearning deep in my marrow and bone; that to deny or even ignore that yearning would be to deny a part of myself. 

There was no helping it, I must prepare to set out this quest. I had to leave behind all I had ever known of comfort, companionship, and plunge headlong into the unknown.

Now, I know what those of you who stumble across this account might be thinking. A youth of tender years, old enough not to thought of as a child not but not yet an adult might run away to join say: PT. Barnum's Traveling Circus or the to sea? 

No, I speak of the mysterious, beautiful Solla Sollew on the banks of the Wah-Ho. Now, Some say that it merely a legend, a myth. Tales of that had come down to us through oral tradition or campfire tales that made us shiver with visceral excitement, fascination, or fear. I will attempt to add my own account to these. Make of it what you will. 

Perhaps many had sought for and failed? I set out with all the goodwill and confidence and supplies that I could muster, and at first, it seemed that the fates and the elements had conspired to point me in the right direction.

An old man that I had come to know fairly well even scribed for me a rough map from memory of a faded sheet of vellum. He told me that the way to Solla Sollew led past the rivers and the walls of towns, meadows, and farms.

The dome of the sky was a clear robin's egg blue and the sun was a golden ball of fuzz, its warmth a welcome sensation on my back. At night when the stars came out, I stopped where I could find shelter either in towns, villages, camps of the gypsy caravans or the woods.

I even once came across a man who claimed to be a jack-of-all-trades and a master of none who traveled by a One-Wheeler Wubble pulled by a camel. We traveled together for a while, in rain and shine, and he knew all manner of gossip, knowledge, and advice. To this day, I am still not certain this chap was in a nomadic tinker, merchant, or snake-oil mountebank.

The camel even got sick once and we had to tie the poor animal to the cart so we could find a remedy for its ailments at the house of Dr. Sam Snell who knew all about tonics and camels.

I no longer recall how many weeks had passed but had now come where there were few signs of human habitation and was now on the border of the Great Western Wood. There were roads that skirted the edges of it, man-made arteries which connected town to town, village to village, and stole a brief glance backward in the direction that I had come from.

There were willows, tall slim serving girls ushering me into the dark interior; other trees standing taller, firs, aspens, and poplars. 

As I approached closer and closer and as I approached something drew my eye to the gnarled trunk of an old weathered poplar tree. There jutting out of the bark of the tree as significant as an arrow embedded into its trunk and then grown over by the turns of the seasons and the years was a milky white stone.

If you looked closely at it that carved into its weathered milky white face was a curled picture of a fox lying nose in tail seemed to be sleeping. The features were nearly worn away where it had gone around and around in an effort to find a comfortable nest.

It was a cunningly fashioned piece of workmanship and I felt a curious urge to take out my pocketknife and work its edge and pry out the milky-white stone. Just as I had my knife out and working away at it when a strong wind sprung up seemingly out of nowhere. So strong that it tore at the leaves of the trees, whipped around the grass and knocked me off my feet.

When I could once more without fear of being flung around or worse, knocked casually aside by someone knocking aside a kitten who clinging to their trousers', I stood up rubbing idly at my tailbone wondering where that strong east wind had come from.

The stone with its carved fox figure was lying at about half a tall man's length from where I stood and amazingly enough, it was no longer stone but a white and grey fox.

"The moon limes everything in the color of ivory. Much thanks to you wayfaring stranger for rescuing me from that trap. To whom do I my deliverance?"

I wondered if I should reveal my name. I knew just enough legends and stories of magic and magical creatures to be wary, enough to know that giving one's true name could be used against you. That's the thing about magic, I knew just enough about this stuff to be a danger to myself. So, I told the fox creature that I was a traveler. seeking Solla Sew.

The Fox, for that, is what it wished to be called eyed me askance and seemed to accept this. For a moment it bent its silvery head and began to clean the pads of its forepaws and smooth outs silvery-gray fur.

"Traveler, what is that you seek?"

"Solla Sollew:" I felt no reason not to tell the truth on this one.

"Hmpph, a bit of a tall order, but I must confess, one does show much chutzpah in setting out in search of it."

"It's real? I asked incredulously. 

"Of course it's real," The Fox replied somewhat archly. "Mortals?" he sniffed. "A wise one does not wait for the realness of the world to prove itself to him one at a time as if one were stitching together or a patchwork quilt."

"It's that I never have seen it before!" 

"Of course not," The Fox replied in an evener tone.

"Solla-Sew and its inhabitants have remained locked away and a subject of myths and legends, much say, the more well-known mysterious cities of yore: Say Atlantis or Ys. Have you heard of Ys, boy?"

I tried to rack my brain if I could recall hearing anything about a legendary city of Ys and for a good long while was utterly unable to recall anything, whilst scratching at the back of my neck both as an outlet for my nervousness and as if by doing so I could knock loose the elusive answer. When it hit me. "Did it not drown?"

"Well, Yes, but that is beside the point. The Dark Forest awaits and so does Solla Sollew! Onwards!" Onwards we went.

I followed my inscrutable guide deeper into the forest; past glades were enormous trees grew taller than the tallest of buildings that I had ever seen, naturally grown pillars of verdant green glades where the only illumination was slightly sunlight and moonlight that chanced to slice down through cracks in the surrounding trees.

The Fox helped me climb in and out through dense thorn thickets. We shared hunting and gathering duties when my provisions ran out. If he used a bit of his own native magic to help cook the coneys and birds he taught me how to catch in jury-rigged snares; I was not one to begrudge the fact that The Fox did exhibit some of the natural traits common to his species.

We forded rivers and I built a raft and built campsites. 

I must admit that there were times along my quest that I was terrified; well, I would be lying if I admitted that. I was afraid, but the need to fulfill the quest was stronger than the fear.

At last, as we clambered over the last of the low-lying hills and stood looking out and down over the valley I finally saw it; the elusive and tantalizing prize I had sought for so very long. 

Solla Sollew in all its glory. Pillars and spires and bridges stretching out into the distance as far as the eye can see. It is like nothing and everything at the same time.<

There's a hush in the air, a stillness in the breeze. All I hear is my own breath in my lungs, and my own feet, right, left, right, left. My companion, The Fox, keeps pace with me, and I have no idea what he might be thinking about all of this.

From up here, it seems taller and grande and I pass an old wall with a pipe jutting out from it that read "Vent Number Five."

"What does that mean?" I asked.

"It means we will avoid any of those confounded Poozers?"

"What's a Poozer?" 

"It might be better if you never find out," my guide replied.

Knowing me and my seemingly insatiable curiosity I asked.

He told me of one legendary Kahn Schmitz in a long-ago battle in Pompelmoose Pass, who had led the charge into that very same pass in the valley we had rested in not two, three nights ago. The glorious general led the advance with a swish of his sword and his lance, clanking with every movement. Either he had not anticipated the number of the enemy or they had stolen a march of him, but they had been surrounded by an army of Poozers, fierce and feral."

"Did the general win?" I ask as we continue to clamber out of the valley to the upper slopes of the forest, thinking that I was heartened that I had not come across these fearsome creatures.

"No, he felt it was the better of part of valor to beat a hasty retreat."

The downsloping path was quite steep and had to slide down: me on my derriere and my guide on crouched down, sliding down and down, faster and faster; until at last we came to a stop with a bump and a thud.

But, here at last time no longer seems to matter. It as I have passed it by. But we will read it together.

The odd thing about it, as marvelous as the city was, it's empty. The stones, the soil, the grassed, the very air holds in the memories of the people who had constructed it. I shiver. 

"What happened here? I ask my guide.

"I don't know." 

I know a dodge when I hear one and I want to call him out on it. "Traveler?"

The Fox looks up at me and says you call yourself traveler, and if you wish, for no that will be your name for as long as may be. However," and he held up a jagged piece of quartz, in this, this piece...." he trailed off.

The possessors of this once were and could be again, like smoke they had their lives and then lost them to time, to Death, to entropy. Magic and what you mortals call science are not so different."

"What are you babbling about?" I'm too exhausted for riddles."

"Every time they assembled he spoke to them."

"Who spoke to them?" I asked.

"The Founder, the Builder," The Fox replied. "He has had many names over the centuries." You seek to discover whether or not Solla Sew is real. It is and is not, as you can see with your own pair of sadly mortal eyes."

I have been a fox for five hundred mortal lives and now I have come to ask you use this piece of the old grand Solla Sew to not only free me of this body of a fox not just for myself but of Solla Sollew."

To this day I do not remember if I feared for myself, my sanity, or what would happen to me as I took the solid block of chalcedony quartz in my two quivering hands. Somewhere along the way, my gloves had fallen to the ground along with my rucksack and everything I had ever known. The words that the Fox had me recite I could never recall even where I to live for a hundred years or more and coming forward towards us was a woman who kissed me on the forehead and thanked me for reuniting her with her lost love.

That same strange wind sprang up and swirled around me, and the city of Solla Sollew was as it was once before, fully populated by strange willowy, tall folk who formally bowed to both myself and the Fox.

The Slippard, the Keeper of the Key to the city is, as its name might signify, a slippery, mischevious creature prone to playing games with those who seek entrance: should they even make it that far. They tell me that it is very bad luck to kill a Slippard which is why; so long ago that in a time someone once did and then the bad luck and rot and everything went to pot.

The Fox was no longer a fox but a tall, dignified man who grabbed my be the arms and danced with me a whirling giddy dance.

Clearing his throat, we will see that you are safely returned to your own folk, but we all owe you our whole-hearted gratitude for our freedom, Traveller. Never fear, it will never be forgotten. Thus it will be written, thus it will be done." He glanced at the others and they all nodded solemnly, and chorus: "Aye, it will be done." We will all remember. 

***

I had troubles getting to Solla Sollrew, lost and forgotten, lost and returned, lost and forgotten, in cycles only to be returned once more. So I add to the accounts of those who have come before me of my adventures. I am home and if this seems strange to you, it will always seem strange yet wondrous to me. Time has caught up to me now, and I no longer that headstrong youth of old, yet I remember and I suspect I always will.


End file.
